Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	brazen_a	look_v	serpent_n	839	5	9.9901	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40888	LXXX sermons preached at the parish-church of St. Mary Magdalene Milk-street, London whereof nine of them not till now published / by the late eminent and learned divine Anthony Farindon ... ; in two volumes, with a large table to both.; Sermons. Selections. 1672	Farindon, Anthony, 1598-1658.	1672 (1672)	Wing F429_VARIANT; ESTC R37327	1,664,550	1,226

Joseph's Pit and Prison Jonah's Whale Daniel's Den were but types and bare resemblances This is a patern with power He hath shewed it us already and at his second coming he will give us power to take it out For as an artificer hath not lost his art when he hath finished one piece no more did Christ his power when he raised himself No it worketh still even to the end of the world Perfectissimum est exemplar minùs perfecti That which he wrought upon himself was most exact and perfect a fit patern for that he means to work on us which will be like to his indeed but not so glorious Not that Christ is so like us that he cannot work but by a patern nor raise us out of our graves unless he look back into his own Our imaginations are not so gross But Christ hath drawn forth his Resurrection as exemplary ex parte resuscitandorum for us to shew how we should rise and that upon our graves shall be written too the epitaph of Resurrection They are risen they are not here Thus is Christ the exemplary cause of our resurrection But this indeed demonstrateth not a power nor will a patern raise me I may have the copy of the Universe but I cannot make another world I may behold the picture of Christ rising from the dead and not be able to draw a line after it Christ is risen I read it in Scripture and believe it too but this will no more raise me up then it will make me valiant to read of Scipio or of Julius Caesar I confess Objects have a moving and attractive force but no such forcible causality The Heavens are a fair sight but they will not make a blind man see And shall a bare patern then make a dead man rise again It is true If it were onely a patern and no more it could not or if he who gave us the patern who was the patern had not given us an instrument to work by even Faith the instrumental cause of our spiritual Resurrection And now it doth raise us up as the object of our Faith merely by being looked upon as the brasen serpent did heal those who were bitten in the wilderness Besides this we may boldly say there is a proper efficiency in Christ's Resurrection an influence and virtue flowing from it upon us a dew as the Prophet calleth it a dew on our souls and a dew on our bodies a dew which will recover a withered soul and make a dead body grow again Our Apostle plainly saith Rom. 4.25 By it we are justified and by it we are raised For if there went forth virtue from his very garment why may not a power proceed also from his Resurrection I know Christ is all in all not bound nor confined to any instrument If he had not risen yet as God he might have raised us But when he dieth and riseth again for our sakes when he useth this to this end we may well call it an efficient cause because he made it so But did not Christ finish all upon the cross Nor do I attribute all to his Resurrection but a power to perform something after the Consummatum est when all was done a power to apply his merits and make his satisfaction sure pay as the stamp and character doth not better a piece of gold but make it current I told you before the whole work of our Redemption though the passages be various is in esteem but one continued act Nor in laying out the causes of our salvation must we sever and divide the Passion from the Resurrection And yet we never read that either the Resurrection did satisfie or the Passion raise us and we may be bold to say without any derogation to Christ's Death and Passion that we are raised again by the power of his Resurrection And now Come see in Christ's Resurrection thy own Nostra natura in Christi hypostasi revixit saith the Father Our nature was united in Christ's Person and in him revived As he took of us To die once so we take from him To rise again and live for ever Son of man can these bones live Ezek. 37.3 it was said to the Prophet in the valley of bones Can these dry bones this dust scattered before the wind this flesh burnt to ashes or devoured by fishes or digested by Cannibals after so many alterations and dispersions and assimilations live Yes He will prophesie upon these bones and call them from the four winds and the breath of Christ's Resurrection shall revive them And this is not a bold presumption as the Heathen termed it For though my flesh be eaten by a Cannibal and that Cannibal by a beast and that beast by fishes and those fishes by men and those men by fishes again though I have all these dispersions and transmigrations of my flesh yet am I still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the storehouses of a powerful Lord and he will recollect and restore me to my own substance again de Caio Caius reducetur as Tertullian speaketh the same Caius that died shall be raised up Think saith he what thou wert before thou wert and then thou canst not doubt but that he that made thee by his word of Nothing can gather thy sacttered parts again by the power of his resurrection But if power be most seen in the performance of the greatest difficulties see yet a more uncouth and horrid spectacle more irrecoverable then rottenness more sensless then a carcase Behold a dead Soul in a living body which is dead and yet dieth every moment behold a man who if he were not mortal would be dead and dying to all eternity You will say the man liveth and eateth and talketh and is in health I but his Soul is dead by which he liveth and then what life is that which Death it self doth actuate For see a Man the statue of himself who being destitute of Grace hath lost his Reason or maketh no other use of it but to mislead him Aures assunt sed migravit auditor His Ears are open but his hearing is gone Eyes he hath but seeth no more then a dead corpse with the eyes open His Tongue is nailed to the roof of his mouth and he keepeth silence but onely from good No action no motion no affection His Understanding is the house of darkness and oblivion his Will a wandering shadow his Affections distracted and blown before the wind scattered like so many straws on a wrought sea from billow to billow from vanity to vanity from one excess to another Son of man can these bones live Can these broken sinews of the soul come together again Can such a disordered clock where every wheel is broken be set again Can this dead soul this almost a Devil be made a Saint and walk before God in the land of the living We stand amazed and must answer with the Prophet O Lord God thou knowest This knowledge is too

not from the Father and the Son but from our fleshly Lusts 1 Pet 2.11 from the beast within us that fighteth against our Soul I am weary of this Spirit I am sure the world hath reason to be so and to cast it out There is a third which I am ashamed of and I have much wondred that ever any who with any diligence had searched the Scriptures or but tasted of the word of truth could have so ethnick a stomach as to digest it But we see some have taken it down with pleasure and it serveth as hot waters to ease them of a pang of that worm which gnaweth within them Shall I name it to you It is Tying of the Truth to the wheel of Fortune or to set it forth in its fairest dress to the Providence of God which moveth in a certain course but most uncertain to us and is then least visible when it is most seen A Prejudice raised out of prosperity and good success Which befalleth the bad as well as the good 2 Sam. 11.25 as the Sword devoureth one as well as another If Event could crown or condem an action Virtue and Vice were not at such a distance as God and Nature have set them That would be Virtue in this age which was Vice in the former that which is true to day might be false to morrow For the same lot befalleth them both That storm which now beateth upon the one may anon be as sharp and violent against the other And indeed Virtue is most fair and glorious in the foulest weather This action hath prospered in my hand Therefore God hath signified it as just is an argument which an Heathen would deny who had but seen the best intentions and goodliest resolutions either by subtilty or violence oft beaten down to the ground Certainly no true Israelite could thus conclude 2 Kings 22.2 who had seen Josiah walking in all the wayes of David his father 2 Kings 23.29 and yet at the last stricken down by the hand of Pharaoh Nechoh in the battel at Megiddo It was indeed the argument of the Epicure against the Providence of God Lucret. l. 2. Aedes saepe suas disturbat That Jupiter let fall his thunderbolts upon his own houses and temples But the Christian can draw no such inferences and conclusions who knoweth the wayes of God are past finding out Rom. 11 3● Gal. 6.14 that the world must be crucified unto him and he unto the world that he must * Acts 14.22 make his way through many afflictions and troubles to his everlasting rest All that can be said is God permitteth it For for any command 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where is it to be found And how can we conclude of that which we do not cannot know Permit it he doth and so he doth all the evil in the world for if he did not permit it it could not be done Hence it is that the storm falleth upon the best as well as upon the worst But to the one though ye call it a Storm it is indeed a gracious rain to water and refresh them as for the other it sweepeth them away and swalloweth them up for ever God's Judgements are like his Spirit Joh. 3.8 a wind that bloweth where it lifteth and we hear the sound thereof but cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth neither for what cause in particular they are sent nor what is their end Permission is no fit basis to build a Command upon Nor can Approbation be the consequent where Permission onely is the antecedent We can no more draw such a conclusion from such premisses then we can strike water out of a flint or fire out of a cake of ice The wicked prosper in their wayes Every Sorcerer is not struck blind Every sacrilegious Ananias is not stricken dead Every Sodom is not consumed with fire But this doth not justifie Sorcery and Sacrilege and Unnatural lust And The righteous are cast down and perish Every just man doth not flourish as a green bay-tree Nay rather as the Apostle saith Not many wise not many noble 1 Cor. 1.26 c. so not many just not many righteous do flourish But this doth not condemn Innocency nor on the sudden as it were transubstantiate and change Virtue into Vice I have the rather brought this Prejudice forth and exposed it to shame because it is common especially amongst the common sort who are as good Logicians as they are Divines whose very natural Logick their Reason is tainted and corrupted by the world in which they live and to which in a manner they grow It is vox populi the language of the Many and it is taken up too oft He hath taken a wrong course Ye see God doth not bless it This is not just For it doth not thrive A Prejudice this which quite putteth out their eyes that they cannot distinguish evil from good nor good from evil the Devil's snare and he hath scarce such another in which he taketh so many He was unfortunate Therefore he was not wise He prospered in his wayes Therefore his wayes were right It is plebiscitüm an Ordinance of the people And sometimes it is senatus consultum an Ordinance of those who count themselves wise And it hath been rescriptum Imperatoris the rescript and determination of the highest A Prejudice which may drive a man like Nebuchadnezzar amongst beasts and make him worse then they An opinion which first withereth a soul that it can bear no fruit and then leaveth it as fuel for hell fire for ever An opinion bellied like the Trojane horse in which lie lurking oppression Deceit Treason all the enemies of Truth and the Father of lies the Devil himself ready to break forth and destroy and devour a soul A foundation and basis large enough to raise a Babel upon all the evil we can do all the evil we can think even confusion it self The hope of good success may flatter me into the greatest sin and when success hath crowned that hope it will dress that sin in the grave mantle of Virtue and Piety and so shut out Repentance for ever Ye see the danger of Prejudice It lieth as a serpent in our way Gen. 49.17 as an adder in our path to bite our heels to hinder us that we cannot travel to the market where Truth is to be bought Let us therefore lay aside all Prejudice and as new born babes desire the sincere milk of the Truth 1 Pet. 2.2 that we may grow thereby Let us not build our faith upon any particular Church or Sect For it is possible that a Church may erre and so deceive us Hear O Israel when the Church speaketh but not so as when God speaketh and publisheth his commands Hear the Church Matth. 18.17 but then when she speaketh the words of God Let not a name and glorious title dazle our eyes He will make but an ill